1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of controlling a reprint operation by embedding electronic watermark information in image data for the print and an image processing apparatus for executing that method.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, with the remarkable improvement of performance on a computer, the advance of technology for a network such as an internet or the like, and the spread of such the technology to general society, for example, an operation of transmitting or receiving various data such as image data and the like through a network comes to be widely performed. Furthermore, a service capable of outputting image data on a network onto the print using a remote printer (hereinafter, called “print service”) also comes to be presented.
By the way, in the above print service, a user requests to print a desired image for a print service providing side (hereinafter, called “service provider side”), thereby performing a print output of the corresponded image data by a printer. However, for example, in case of reperforming a print request of image data which is same as that of before requested to print by a user, any of the following methods 1 to 3 is adopted.
Method 1: the user transmits the same image data again to a service provider side.
Method 2: instead of transmitting the same image data again, the user stores information at the time of performing a print request of the last time and reperforms the print request on the basis of print request information at that time.
Method 3: in case of performing a print output, a visible identifier is embedded in target image data, and the print request is performed using that identifier.
However, in the above conventional print service capable of performing the print output of the image data on the network using the remote printer, there occurred the following problems.
First, in order to perform a precise print output of the target image data, since it is required to adjust the target image data to an image file of large data amount, it becomes important to perform the more effective transmission. For a user who utilizes such the print service, it becomes important that the communication cost is reduced.
For example, in case of utilizing Method 1, the transmission cost due to that method results in the high cost. In case of utilizing Method 2, if the user loses print request information of the last time, a print request utilizing this print request information can not be performed. In case of utilizing Method 3, extra information for the user is outputted on the print.